Garden Friends

We've had lots of praying mantis encounters in our yard lately.  The kids have loved observing them.  One even welcomed herself into our home so we caught her and put her in our terrarium to observe REALLY close for a while.  The best part was releasing her back into our garden.  We set her on a tomato plant and decided we probably wouldn't know she was there had we not just put her there, due to her camouflage (that one was green, unlike the brown one pictured above).  They are so interesting!  We noticed that they lay down their antennas when they feel threatened, just like a cat or horse do with their ears.  And if we snuck up on the side of them, they'd turn their head towards us and look at us with their antennas laid back.  So neat.
We were studying birds at that time in school and we talked about how birds eat praying mantis.  Logan drew this "Mommy guided drawing" (where I show him step by step directions on my own paper and he follows on his paper to do it himself) of a small list of things birds eat, including our praying mantis.

Logan's caption reads, "Birds eat bugs, praying mantis, and worms."

I do hope, however, that our praying mantis friends are still in our garden and have not become bird snacks.  I just LOVE child directed learning like this.  I sure learn a lot more that way, and I hope the kids do too.  It sticks with them longer, I know that for sure, because they talk about those past experiences a lot.